Federer advances in ATP Finals

LONDON — Roger Federer showed that memories of this year’s Wimbledon final are well and truly behind him.

In the first rematch between Federer and Novak Djokovic since that epic five-set final, the Swiss star dominated from the start to win 6-4, 6-3 Thursday and reach the semifinals of the ATP Finals.

“I played incredible and I knew I had to,” Federer said. “I was able to produce, it was definitely magical.”

It was Federer’s first victory over the Serb since 2015, having lost their past five meetings — including that Wimbledon final in July when Djokovic saved two match points in the fifth set.

“Obviously it’s always special beating Novak, even more so because of what happened [at Wimbledon],” Federer said. “But I didn’t feel like I had to get rid of the ghosts or anything like that. I feel like I moved on pretty quickly after that.”

This match had little of the same drama as Djokovic gave up three cheap service breaks and Federer gave him no chance to get back in it.

The whole thing lasted just 1 hour, 13 minutes and ended with Djokovic being broken at love.

“He was the better player in all aspects and absolutely deserved to win,” Djokovic said. “Just a pretty bad match from my side.”

The result means Djokovic was eliminated with a 1-2 record in the group stage, and ensures that Rafael Nadal will keep hold of the year-end No. 1 ranking. Djokovic had a chance to overtake Nadal and equal Pete Sampras’ record of finishing the year as No. 1 for a sixth time by winning the tournament.

Earlier, Matteo Berrettini made sure he left the tournament with a victory by beating Dominic Thiem 7-6 (3), 6-3.

Today, Rafael plays Stefanos Tsitsipas and defending champion Alexander Zverev faces Daniil Medvedev. Tsitsipas has already secured a spot in the last four, while the other three still have a chance of advancing.